A
study by Citizen Action says the uninsured are being overcharged
by hospitals

‘People
don’t plan on getting sick and ending up in the hospital.
So people in New York don’t realize how bad it is,” said Richard
Kirsch of Citizen Action. Kirsch’s group released a study
last Thursday (March 16) that says hospitals in New York,
on average, charge uninsured patients double the actual cost
of care. Locally, the study shows that in 2003, Ellis Hospital
in Schenectady and St. Peter’s Hospital in Albany charged
the uninsured three times the cost of care. In fact, the report
shows that hospitals in the northeast part of the state in
general had the greatest overcharge rates in the state.

“I
think people are angry that the people who have the least
are charged three to four times those with coverage,” said
Assemblyman Peter Grannis (D-Manhattan). Grannis said that
he has been moved by the people he has met who have been affected
by overburdensome medical bills. He points to one man who
is being assisted in overcoming his medical debt by the Empire
Justice Center: “He had a heart operation after a heart attack,
and got a $250,000 bill that had he been under the Empire
Plan [insurance program] would have cost $50,000, and the
medical team who did it refused to knock down their bill.”
Insurance providers generally negotiate discounted rates of
care for their clients.

On March 13, the Assembly approved a bill sponsored by Grannis
that would require hospitals to provide discounts and assistance
to the underinsured. However, Grannis noted that there needs
to be further discussion of the bill: “What it is you get
the discount off of? If it is off the $250,000, who cares
if you get 10 percent off?” Both Grannis and Kirsch are hopeful
the bill will make it through the Senate.

According to Christian Brown of the Empire Justice Center
(a nonprofit advocacy group that helps people with debt reduction),
hospitals are the largest holders of medical debt. She pointed
to a survey her group did that says, “Eighty percent of people
surveyed with medical debt owed hospitals, and of those folks
who did indicate debt, 62 percent were not offered financial
assistance of any kind.”

According to Brown, the people who need financial assistance
are not getting it. “You have to figure out what programs
are available, and it’s not easy. The real issue is there
is no statewide process the hospitals have to follow [or]
clear guidelines about who would be eligible, how hospitals
[should] let people know about them.”

Hospital representatives don’t dispute the numbers contained
in Citizen Action’s report, as the numbers were reported by
the hospitals themselves. They do, however, claim that the
numbers, which are from 2003, do not reflect improvements
that have been made since. Elmer Streeter, a spokesman for
St. Peter’s, said that before 2004 the hospital industry believed
“that you had to bill people who did not have insurance at
[full] charges, and this was a rule by Medicare.” Streeter
said that later in 2004, the rule was clarified and hospitals
were told they could provide discounts to the uninsured.

Said Streeter of the Citizen Action report, “The other thing
that does not show up in the report [is] even back when there
were no discounts, the charges were not what you ended up
getting paid. Many people simply didn’t pay. It’s not a matter
of some sort of windfall.”

Streeter pointed to his hospital’s numerous programs for those
with an inability to pay. He said the hospital has financial
advisors who try to get the uninsured coverage, and if they
aren’t successful they try to qualify the uninsured for financial
assistance through the hospital’s programs. According to Streeter,
the physical bills from his hospital also alert patients to
financial assistance for those who cannot pay. “Last year
we spent $18 million on programs to care for the poor,” said
Streeter.

Streeter insisted the true issue is the 46 million uninsured
Americans. “The problem here is we have not addressed how
to care for the uninsured,” he said.

Kirsch noted that his group did go back and take a look at
19 of the upstate hospitals surveyed in the last year, and
that seven of them had improved. “It shows that some hospitals
can do the right thing, but most hospitals aren’t, and voluntary
standards don’t work. Particularly when hospitals are taking
almost a billion dollars of taxpayer money to provide uncompensated
care. It’s outrageous they expect to get this money with no
strings attached.”

—David
King

dking@metroland.net

What
a Week

Nobody
Messes With Google

Citing
a concern for privacy issues, a federal judge
cleared the way last week for the Department of
Justice to request thousands of Web site addresses
and search queries from Internet search company
Google, but forced the federal agency to withdraw
its request for Google users’ search histories.
The DOJ has argued that it needs the data in order
to measure the effects of child-pornography investigation
software. Google was the only major search company
to fight the request.

Asteroids
Got Nothing on Us

According
to a recent United Nations report, humans are
responsible for the greatest extinction event
since dinosaurs disappeared from the Earth, and
the sixth greatest extinction event of all time.
The other events on the list were caused by asteroid
strikes, volcanic eruptions and rapid climate
shifts. Current rates of species extinction are
1,000 times the historical rate. According to
“The Red List,” compiled by the World Conservation
Union, 844 animals and plants have become extinct
in the last 500 years. In 2002, the U.N. set the
date of 2010 to achieve “a significant reduction
in the current rate of biodiversity loss.” At
current rates, the goal will not be met.

Bionic
Humans, Coming Up

Scientists
have created a synthetic muscle that is 100 times
stronger than a human’s. It runs on oxygen and
a cyclical combination of alcohol and hydrogen
rather than batteries, giving the possibility
of much more freedom of use. However, the new
muscles still are a long way from being able to
perform more delicate maneuvers than lifting weights.

Hope
for Quick Cash Springs Eternal

A
new type of computer virus is avoiding the stealth
approach of its predecessors. “Ransomware” encrypts
word-processing and spreadsheet files on a user’s
computer, and then sends a message demanding $300,
transferred electronically, for the password to
unencrypt them. Luckily, the “Zippo Trojan Horse”
and its ilk appear to be spreading slowly. No
word on whether anyone has actually ponied up
the $300.

Capital Region residents might do well to pay more attention
to the fiasco surrounding corrupt Washington, D.C., lobbyist
Jack Abramoff, as the political fallout has begun hitting
close to home in recent months.

Last week, local congressman Rep. John Sweeney (R-Clifton
Park) was one of several members of Congress to have his financial
records pulled by a U.S. Department of Justice investigator
involved with the Abramoff scandal. At the same time, the
investigator pulled the records of several other prominent
lawmakers with public connections to the disgraced lobbyist,
including Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Texas) and Sen. Conrad Burns (R-Mont.),
as well as those of a handful of Democrats with no known connection
to him.

Sweeney has claimed to have no personal connection to Abramoff.
When the scandal broke, he donated to charity about $2,000
in campaign contributions he had accepted from one of the
lobbyist’s clients. (Sen. Hillary Clinton did the same.) However,
Sweeney’s decision to attend a $2,000-per-person (the maximum
limit for individual contributions) fund-raiser with pharmaceutical
industry lobbyists at a Utah ski lodge a week after donating
the money has caused editorial and letters-to-the-editor pages
alike to question his sincerity when it comes to wanting to
restore public faith in congressional lawmakers.

While the critical eye cast on Sweeney by the mainstream media
in the wake of this news turned more sympathetic recently
when the congressman spent several days in the hospital for
blood-pressure-related problems, the extent of his connections
with Abramoff is still uncertain—a fact that Sweeney’s rival,
Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand, has repeatedly pointed out.

Meanwhile, the specter of the Abramoff scandal looms large
over New York’s decision-making process regarding voting machines.
According to the New York State Commission on Lobbying, Abramoff’s
former lobbying firm, Greenberg Traurig Inc., spent more than
$275,000 pushing for voting machine manufacturer Diebold to
gain a foothold in the governor’s office, the New York State
Board of Elections, the New York City Board of Elections and
the Legislature.

Diebold’s former CEO, Walden O’Dell, who famously declared
in 2003 that he was “committed to helping Ohio deliver its
electoral votes to the president,” resigned last year amid
reports that the company was being investigated for fraud
and various other illegal activities. In addition to numerous
reports regarding the ease with which Diebold machines’ vote
tallies can be manipulated, more than 20 percent of the machines
failed or otherwise incorrectly reported vote results last
year in one of the largest tests conducted on the electronic
machines.

Nevertheless, many of New York’s state and local lawmakers
appear to be leaning toward using similar machines, rather
than the more reliable optical-scan balloting machines—a situation
that, according to many voters-rights groups, indicates the
level of influence lobbyists like Abramoff’s firm have been
able to buy in New York.

Now, as headlines regarding the Abramoff scandal fade from
the front pages of mainstream newspapers and evening news
programs, the calls for reform put out by Sweeney and other
federal lawmakers have also faded away. Although a yet-to-be-introduced
Senate bill would prevent lawmakers from accepting meals and
gifts from registered lobbyists, the bill’s counterpart in
the House—originally an expansive prohibition on gifts from
lobbyists—has diminished to a simple requirement for more
disclosure. With federal and state lobbying groups already
saying they don’t expect these ramifications of the Abramoff
scandal to affect the way the way they go about their days,
Capital Region residents may not be too far off base in wondering
how the scandal will affect the way they go about theirs.

Calls to Sweeney’s office were not returned.

Overheard

Overheard:

“Delaware
Avenue’s haunted.”

“Delaware
Avenue?”

“Yeah.
Something bad happened there.”

—CDTA Route 18 bus, in the midst of a discussion
of haunted houses.

Overheard:“Question
his manhood.”

—Ralph
Nader, at a press conference Tuesday supporting
Alice Green, in response to a question about how
Green could convince Mayor Jerry Jennings to participate
in a debate.

Loose
Ends

Last
Thursday, Save the Pine Bush filed two
lawsuits against the Albany Common Council in
the State Supreme Court to stop development in
the Pine Bush [“Land Trust,” Nov. 24, 2005]. The
first lawsuit asks the court to throw out the
Common Council rezoning of 0.7 acres of the nearly
7-acre Daughters of Sarah office park and the
environmental impact statement that went with
it. The other lawsuit demands the court reject
the Common Council vote to accept an environmental-impact
statement regarding the construction of a Marriott
Residence Inn in the Pine Bush. The group claims
that the Pine Bush is a unique ecosystem that
needs to be preserved and that the building will
disrupt the habitat of the nearly extinct Karner
blue butterfly. . . . Written comments on a proposal
for a countywide water system in Saratoga
[“To the Last Drop,” Dec. 2, 2004] are being accepted
through April 7. The plan, which the city of Saratoga
Springs has opted out of in favor of drawing water
from Saratoga Lake, would draw water from the
Hudson River at Moreau, and send it south through
a 28-mile pipeline. To break even, the plan would
require computer chip plants to move into the
Luther Forest Technology Park [“If You Build It,
What Will Come?” Oct. 23, 2003], which has yet
to happen. Comments can be delivered to the Board
of Supervisors offices, 40 McMaster St., Ballston
Spa, NY 12020.